Working Paper No. 11-22:
The Tea Party Movement and Popular Constitutionalism

Author(s):

Abstract:

The
rise of the Tea Party movement follows a period during which many scholars have
focused on “popular constitutionalism”: the involvement of public opinion and
popular movements in influencing constitutional interpretation. Most of the
previous scholarship on popular constitutionalism analyzed movements identified
with the political left. Although the Tea Party movement is primarily composed
of conservatives and libertarians, it has much in common with previous popular
constitutional movements.

Part
I of this Essay describes some of these similarities, focusing on the ways in
which popular constitutional movements have arisen in response to social or
economic crises, or major policy initiatives instituted by their opponents.
Part II explains how the Tea Party movement shares key strengths and weaknesses
of other popular movements. Public opinion on constitutional and policy issues
is often influenced by widespread political ignorance and irrationality. The
Tea Party is no exception to these trends. The evidence suggests, however, that
Tea Party supporters are no more likely to be ignorant than public opinion
generally, or their opponents on the political left.

Part
III explains two possible advantages of one unusual feature of the Tea Party:
the fact that it is the first popular constitutionalist movement in many years
whose main focus is the need to limit federal power. The enormous size and
scope of modern government undercuts meaningful democratic control over
government policy because “rationally ignorant” voters cannot keep track of
more than a small fraction of government activity. Strengthening democratic
accountability is one of the main objectives of advocates of popular
constitutionalism. The imposition of stricter limits on government power might
make that goal easier to achieve. The Tea Party’s focus on limiting government
also makes it less likely that we will see the emergence of a right-wing
populist movement that is primarily focused on intolerance and xenophobia, of
the kind that often arose during previous economic downturns.